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The ADC is only used to replicate information from AD to Exchange 5.5 organizations. Do you mean something other than the ADC?

That's not the way I see ADC and I think that replication piece is what I keep referring too as well. Since Exchange servers should not run on a DC they deploy a connector to manage mailboxes. As you know the mail information (at least prior to 07) is stored as an Active Directory Object. The AD Connector interfaces with Active directory and is required to manage exchange in addition to replication It adds the Active Directory Users and Computers interface basically.

Exchange 2003 alters the AD schema significantly. So if you have Exchange servers or management station that do not have an updated Connector you are in trouble when you try and integrate the new server. At least on 2003. And not just for 5.5, 2000 as well. I have exchange system managers on computers other than exchange servers for example. They require the connector and it's upgrades. I emphasise this because it caused me GREAT headaches and some data corruption. Assuming you try to move a box or modify exchange properties.

I am like you phish, I only manage exchange when I am forced to intervene. Everything I have learned is through sleepless nights. I tried to take a formal class once, they are hard to find here. I am going to send someone though the next time I see one.

I am very surprised that 07 doesn't manage users through AD. That goes agaisnt centrilized repository of user information and the industry trends. You have to build a user on AD then on Exchange? Doesn't make sense to me at this point.

Might as well use Linux and LDAP. Save money.

West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

You can actually create your new users in Exchange using the EMC.
However, you can't copy users. I like use an existing user as a template.

All of the user and mailbox info is still stored in Active Directory. You just can't create the mailbox in the ADUC utility. Well, you can... but it doesn't create it properly. It creates the wrong type of mailbox. It will still work in outlook, but OWA won't work with it.

So, you can create your user in ADUC, then go to the EMC and add a new mailbox for the user. Or, you can go directly to the EMC and create a new mailbox but create the user at the same time. Then go back to ADUC and add the user to the correct sec and distribution groups.

Aparently, the reason you have to use the EMC instead of the ADUC is because of the way 2007 integrates with the powershell. Everything you do in the EMC simply executes a script in the exchange powershell. A lot of things actually have to be done in the shell as the GUI is not complete with the full set of options and commands.

SP1 is supposed to add a bunch of options to the GUI. Right now, you can't manage public folders... but come SP1, you can.

Does 2003 have the ability to create room or equipment mailboxes?

In 2007, when you create a maibox for a room or resource, it creates a user account but disables the user account.

I have a bunch of rooms and resources setup as user accounts. I haven't yet seen a way to transition those to 2007 and then convert them over to the room or resource type mailbox. I didn't look too hard though... right now I'm still just playing and testing.

Last edited by phishphreek; April 17th, 2007 at 01:15 AM.

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That's not the way I see ADC and I think that replication piece is what I keep referring too as well. Since Exchange servers should not run on a DC they deploy a connector to manage mailboxes. As you know the mail information (at least prior to 07) is stored as an Active Directory Object. The AD Connector interfaces with Active directory and is required to manage exchange in addition to replication It adds the Active Directory Users and Computers interface basically.

This is not an AD connector. The ADC is a very specific piece of software that replicates data from Windows 2000 AD to an Exchange5.5 directory service, dir.edb. Exchange makes all of its calls to AD using LDAP. There is no special connector that is installed. Sounds to me like you are trying to say that the ESM tool has some kind of connector. And while it does need to be updated to the proper version of exchange to read schema and AD information properly, this is not called a connector. Atleast not by MS or any reputable exchange engineer I have ever met.

Exchange 2003 alters the AD schema significantly. So if you have Exchange servers or management station that do not have an updated Connector you are in trouble when you try and integrate the new server. At least on 2003. And not just for 5.5, 2000 as well. I have exchange system managers on computers other than exchange servers for example. They require the connector and it's upgrades. I emphasise this because it caused me GREAT headaches and some data corruption. Assuming you try to move a box or modify exchange properties.

Again, you just need to update ESM, you are calling this a connector and in reality that is a term you have made up. When you upgrade from outlook 2000 to outlook2003 you don't say you are upgrading your exchange connector.

It is a weird change that MS took away the ability to create a mailbox in AD-UAC. But you can create an AD user account and mailbox enable that account inside of the management console. But I think that is really a moot point. All of our mailboxes will be created through powershell scripts. Makes it very easy to create a mailbox provisioning website that creates an AD account and then mailbox enables that account. We do it right now with CDOEXM. I've not manually created a mailbox in years.

Again, you just need to update ESM, you are calling this a connector and in reality that is a term you have made up. When you upgrade from outlook 2000 to outlook2003 you don't say you are upgrading your exchange connector.

I might be a little off on nomenclature but I didn't make it up, when I had issues across my 3 servers MS kept using the term. And frankly I am a little pissed off about it. Because I have NEVER run a 5.5. At 5.5 I thought exchange was a joke. Anyway.. I dug out my books and read every single chapter that had ADC in it and it always refers to exactly what you mention. Replication from 5.5. I was under the assumption that ESM uses the ADC or what I call ADC to connect ESM to active directory. You say it's just LDAP. There are a ton of components in active directory so I have been using the wrong nomenclature apparently and when MS directed me to upgrade my ADC they were either thinking I had 5.5 or I misunderstood what they were saying.

So back to my original use of the term... make sure you upgrade all your ESM components.

//EDIT and you guys have convinced me there is no way in HELL I am going to upgrade to 2007. I would rather take the time to work out openexchange or groupware.

Last edited by RoadClosed; April 19th, 2007 at 04:40 PM.

West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

Well, I'm happy to say that the transition to Exchange 2007 has been going pretty smoothly. I've been pretty busy with other projects, so I'm only working on this here and there. I've also taken a small break in order to learn how to use the widows powershell.

Up until now, I was just creating test users to use Exchange 2000 and then transitioning them over to 2007. Seeing how it redirects the outlook client, blackberry desktop client and also if blackberry would even be able to send to the 2007 server. I was able to get many problems that I didn't know I would encounter fixed this way.

I've been able to get Exchange 2007 to work with the Blackberry server. I thought that was going to be the biggest issue. It was surprisingly easy.

I finally moved over a couple of production accounts and all seems to be working properly.

Now, I just need to get a good backup system in place and plan the rest of the transition. This is my first big project with Exchange... so I'm taking it very slow and doing a lot of research and learning. I'm glad I didn't wait too long to get started on this project.

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